NGC7217

NGC 7217 is a very strange galaxy in Pegasus. It has a huge core of old stars that show filaments of star clouds resembling arms. These grow faint then suddenly turn blue indicating the stars making up this outside area are all young hot stars. The filaments of spiral-like structure can be followed up to about 10 seconds of the very core of the galaxy. They cross this fainter region and keep going. This is a very strange structure. The outer blue region has caused the galaxy to be classified as a ring galaxy which is generally conceded to be wrong. It's just an illusion caused by the faint region between the old and young star regions. Why it has this construction isn't well known. The galaxy has an active nucleus and is a LINER class galaxy. I couldn't find a good distance estimate for it. Redshift indicates it is very near at about 30 million light years but at that distance redshift can be highly misleading. Still, it appears to be in the ballpark at least. This is one case when the Kitt Peak image of this galaxy isn't much better than mine. Sometimes their seeing isn't much better than mine here -- but that's rare. Note they show a distance of about 40 million light years but don't state where they get that figure.
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/aop/observers/n7217.html

NGC 7217 was discovered by William Herschel on September 7, 1784 and is in the original Herschel 400 observing program. My entry with my 10" F/5 on July 10, 1985 under average conditions using 60x to 180x reads: "Nearly round galaxy, gradually brighter toward the core. Bright nucleus is seen only with averted vision. Beauty is best seen at 60x where it seems to sit in a beautiful rich star field. It must be greatly dimmed by dust in the Milky Way." I'm not sure that last comment is correct as I don't see that in my image. Seligman classifies it as Sb? while NED says (R)SA(r)ab;Sy LINER and the NGC project says simply Sb.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=4x10x3 B=3x10x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7217

NGC7223

NGC 7223 is a face on barred spiral in Lacerta about 200 million light-years away. It is part of a group of 18 galaxies known as the LDCE 1503 group. It would seem to qualify for Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies in two categories. It is a three-arm spiral and a better example of this than some in his atlas. It also has a nearby companion he likely would consider as a high surface brightness companion on an arm. The "companion" is Holm 788B. NGC 7223 is also Holm 788A. I found no distance estimates for Holm 788B so it is unknown if it is a true companion. To me, it appears to be more distant but then all galaxies in the image that have distance data are part of the group and thus at about the same distance as NGC 7223. It would be the lone exception. NGC 7223 is classed by NED as SB(rs)bc. The NGC project using a different classification system says SBc. It was discovered by John Herschel on September 6, 1834.

The other major spiral is UGC 11927. NED classes it as Sb. Its color is very different from NGC 7223. Below it is PGC 068169. Note that The Sky 6's database shows UGC 11927 as being PGC 068169. This is an error that had me confused for a bit. UGC 11927's PGC designation is PGC 68171. The Sky 6 hasn't heard of it.

CGCG 530-014 has two blue objects just below it. They don't appear to be stars. I can't tell if they are part of the galaxy or a background galaxy or galaxies.

The field being located near the Milky Was hasn't yet had its Sloan data entered in the NED database. This greatly limited the galaxies with any data. All listed in NED are labeled in the annotated image by name, even those without distance data.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7223

NGC7227

This field of galaxies a bit over a quarter of a billion light-years distant is rarely imaged by amateurs. I found only one color amateur image and only a couple more mono images. The main three galaxies form a triplet known at NED as UZC-CG 276. That stands for the Updated Zwicki Catalog-Compact Groups. It was searching this catalog that led me to this field. Near the center is NGC 7228 whose outer arms form a ring coming from the bar of an SBa type galaxy. Usually, a SBa galaxy has rather tight arms, not the wide spaced ones seen here. Makes me wonder if the outer faint arms were even seen when it was categorized. The redshift and Tully-Fisher distances are almost exactly the same, varying only at the 3rd decimal point. I can't recall seeing any that agreed this well. Thanks to its widely spaced but extremely faint outer arms I measure its size at 150,000 light-years making it a very large spiral.

The other NGC galaxy in the field is NGC 7227 to the west, it is listed as an S0. It seems to show some hints of spiral structure and has a redshift almost identical to that of NGC 7228. The third member of the group is UGC 11960 an Elliptical galaxy with a Seyfert 2 nucleus. Its redshift puts it very slightly closer but I suspect that's mostly due to relative velocity in the group and it really is at virtually the same distance as the other two. Besides being a Seyfert 2 galaxy it shows in radio to be a very extended S-shaped radio source. Both its Seyfert status and radio signature likely are the result of something it is still digesting.

LEDA 2133919 is too distant (angular distance) to make the cut for a compact group but may also be a true member with its redshift again due to high speed motion in our direction. More likely it is not a member. The group and its surroundings are too poorly studied to determine which is the case. Three other galaxies that are likely group members are at the top of my frame. They are at 260 to 270 million light-years distant.

The only other galaxy with redshift data is a flat galaxy, 2MFGC 16749 mostly off the top of my image. Only its southern end made it into my image. It has a greater redshift than the others indicating it likely is unrelated to the others at a distance of 324 million light-years about 40 million light-years beyond the two NGC galaxies. But it could just have a high relative velocity. I consider this unlikely, however.

This field is so poorly studied only these 8 galaxies have any redshift data that I could find. Many more interesting galaxies are in the field that too may be part of the group but with nothing more to go on it can't be determined which, if any are group members.

The two NGC galaxies were discovered by Édouard Stephan on September 1, 1879. How he missed the third member I don't know as he was using a 31" reflector. IC 5180 was found by Guillaume Bigourdan on September 21, 1890.

There's one asteroid in the image southwest of NGC 7227, (294725) 2008 BV40 with an estimated 19.1 magnitude by the Minor Planet Center. I get a magnitude of 19.3.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7227

NGC7234

NGC 7234 was discovered by William Herschel on October 16, 1787 but when his sister reduced his coordinates she made an error. She referenced a vacant piece of sky just below my image. Thus many catalogs list NGC 7234 as non-existent. Not finding anything at his dad's position as recorded by his aunt John Herschel found and recorded the cluster at its correct position on September 24, 1829 which he included in his General Catalog. Unfortunately, when John prepared his General Catalog in 1864 he missed the correction to the position of NGC 7234 by Arthur von Auwers published 2 years earlier. So his entry was given the designation of NGC 7235. Both were included in his General Catalog. When Dreyer prepared the NGC 25 years later he listed "both" clusters not realizing there was nothing at the position for NGC 7234 or that von Auwers had discovered it was John Herschel's cluster. So today some sources like WEBDA omit NGC 7234 but all include NGC 7235. It's not in either H400 program.

By whichever name you desire, the cluster is about 9,200 light-years distant in southern Cepheus less than a degree south of Zeta Cephei. WEBDA lists its age at 11.8 million years which makes it quite young. At that age I expected its stars to be blue rather than white but WEBDA lists it as being reddened by nearly a magnitude. I'd not think that sufficient to turn very blue stars white but apparently it is. The Sky shows the bright orange star as being only 65 light-years distant so it isn't a cluster member. The cluster's Trumpler classification is II3m. Even though discovered by William Hershel and a rather easy cluster visually it didn't make either of the Herschel 400 observing programs, possibly due to the position error for William's discovery of it.

14" LX100R @ f/10, L=4x10' (one version) RGB=1x10' (both versions), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7234

NGC7241

II Zw 174/NGC 7241 is a very strange edge on galaxy in Pegasus about 50 million light-years from us by redshift. The CGPG says of it: "Edge-on spiral, tremendous absorption lane and various large blue compact patches." I'd say that sums it up rather well. It has little central bulge so is rather flat. Not flat enough to make the Flat Galaxy Catalog but it is in the 2MASS version of IR strong flat galaxies (2MFGC 16794). Their flatness requirements are not as strict. The core is very strange with those blue blobs (star clusters I assume) floating around. They remind me of a neighbor who keeps seeing dust "orbs" in her flash photos and thinks they are ghosts of her deceased husband, a daughter and her pet dogs and cats. She's known around here as "The crazy lady down the way." She actually hires a medium to "communicate" with them. NGC 7241 was discovered by Édouard Stephan on September 3, 1872.

It's companion UGC 11964 is a featureless flat galaxy that did make the FGC as entry 2379. It too is about 50 million light-years away by redshift so a true companion. While I'd like to blame the oddities of II Zw 174 on interaction with it, it is so featureless I can't see that there's ever been any interaction. More likely the odd appearance of II Zw 174 is due to some hapless companion that strayed too close and is still being "digested" by the galaxy. However a very old paper, 1984 http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?1984BAAS...16..961G&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1 says VLA data indicates there's a hidden companion behind II Zw 174. At that time the idea of galaxies feeding on each other wasn't well accepted. I couldn't find anything newer on it however.

NED classes II Zw 174 as SB(s)bc? pec. The NGC project agrees saying SBbc/P using its system. It is also in the Kiso Ultra violet excess Catalog (KUG 2213+189B). This would support a tremendous amount of star formation going on in the galaxy. UGC 11964 is listed by NED as simply Sd though some other sources say Sc. Considering how featureless it is (at least visually) I can understand the differences.

NED has no redshift data on any other galaxy in my image and only lists 13 others (all from the 2MASS) in the field though I see several hundred anonymous galaxies.

I see faint hints of scattered stars well outside the galaxy, especially to the southeast. I'd planned on taking a lot more data, and in fact, did take over twice what I used. Unfortunately, I didn't give up until long after I should have so ended up throwing out a lot. Thus I wasn't able to show but a hint of what I think should be seen to the southeast.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=5x10' RGB=2x10' (some rather poor), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7241

NGC7242

NGC 7242 is a very large galaxy that anchors the NGC 7242 group. It is about 250 million light-years distant. I can trace the plumes off each end of the galaxy out about 490 seconds of arc on the luminance FITS. That would translate to almost 600,000 light-years for its diameter. If true that's one huge galaxy. I suppose it is possible some of this is IFN or something else. Measuring the obvious diameter I get 334 seconds of arc. That is over 400 million light-years. No matter how you look at it, it is one big honker of a galaxy to use the scientific term. NED classes it as E+? and cD?. The NGC project says simply E. This would indicate they are unsure how much of its elongation is due to its nature and how much has been caused by tidal plumes created when it interacted and likely ate many members of the group. That is, much of its shape may be due to indigestion from overeating in the recent past. It was discovered by August Voigt in 1865, possibly in August.

IC 5195 is seen against the galaxy to the northeast. Its redshift puts it a tad closer which is likely the case. While NGC 7242 is rather dust free and thus somewhat transparent I doubt it is as transparent as it would have to be to see this small galaxy through it. I found no classification for this small, but rather bright, galaxy.

IC 5193 another spherical galaxy to the southeast that is considerably larger than IC 5195 but it too shows no classification at NED. IC 5193 was found by Edward Barnard on December 5, 1888. IC 5195 was found by Guillaume Bigourdan on October 16, 1895.

NGC 7240 to the southwest shows some hint of a tilted disk though its overall shape is nearly round. It is classed as S0-:. It was discovered by Édouard Stephan on September 26, 1873.

I need to do some explaining here based on questions I've been getting. The S0 class was once considered it's own with no subdivision. It sits between elliptical and spiral showing characteristics of both. But as these were studied it was decided some were more elliptical than spiral and some were more spiral than elliptical. Thus two other classes were created S0- and S0+ respectively. The colon means there's some question if this is right or not. So this one is an "early" S0 though there's still some debate. Early comes from the now discounted idea that galaxies started as round ellipticals, which elongated turning into S0 galaxies which then developed arms which gradually got more widely spread out. While we now think this very wrong and to some extent backward the idea that a moving toward the elliptical from the spiral means a younger (early) galaxy and moving toward the spiral direction means older (late) is still used in terminology. The minus or plus sign is usually a superscript but that's a character that depends on what font set your computer uses and with this going to all parts of the world I left that out. Sometimes I've used the ^ to denote superscript and a second one to denote the end of superscript. NED usually does this. Sometimes if the S0 is quite balanced then they use the superscript 0. Since doing that is also may not work with all fonts and to prevent the confusing S00 it is usually written S0^0 and if there's a question about this then you'll see S0^0^: or sometimes S0^0^? Another system, not used by NED, would make these three S0(1) S0(2) and S0(3). Seems easier but NED doesn't use it. Now that I've got you all confused I'll move on.

To the upper right of NGC 7240 is IC 1441 classed as SBa? A tightly wound barred spiral, they think. It was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan on September 25, 1889. IC 5192 is to the southeast making a nice triangle with the other two. NED has little to say about it, however. To its west is IC 5191 which has the NED class of S0-a. They were discovered by Edward Barnard on December 5, 1888. So as soon as you think you understand this they throw another curve. This is even later than S0+ but still not quite Sa. It can be written S0/a as well. The MCG catalog gives its coordinates as the same as IC 1441 in error. So if you wonder why I need two days to do these, its things like this that can really take up time figuring out who is right and who is wrong.

I've listed a few other galaxies in the annotated image, some with redshift data, some without if they seemed likely to be members of the group. Most of the rest are anonymous in NED but for a few small IR galaxies in the 2MASS survey.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7242

NGC7243

NGC 7243 is an elongated cluster of rather bright blue stars in Lacerta. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 26, 1788. It is in the original H400 program. My notes from June 14, 1985 on a fair but humid night with my 10" f/5 at 60x reads: "Large scattered cluster in two parts as it seems cut by a dark lane. This seemed to fade away when the cluster was partly obscured by a thin cloud. Visually, to me, it is more a star cloud than a true cluster." I think I see the dark lane I referred to.

There's only one galaxy in the image with redshift data. It is in the lower right corner and is LEDA 167750 at a redshift distance of about 580 million light-years. The much closer star cluster is about 2600 light-years distant per WEBDA. They give its age at 114 million years. While reddened slightly at 0.22 magnitude its very young age makes most of its brighter stars coming out very blue even with the smoke this was imaged through.

I needed something big and bright to make processing easier for a change, this is it. Not very interesting but is an original H400 object, one of the few I've left to capture that are far enough north for my latitude and observatory wall.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick


http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC7243/NGC7243L4X10RGB2X10-67.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC7243/NGC7243L4X10RGB2X10-67CROP.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/NGC/NGC7243/NGC7243L4X10RGB2X10.JPG

Related Designations for NGC7243

NGC7245

NGC 7245 is a Trumpler class II1p (one source says II2m) open cluster in Northern Lacerta. Its classification indicates it is a cluster detached from the background with little concentration made up of stars with evenly bright stars and less than 50 stars. From my image, it seems very hard to distinguish from the background. It's the blue stars a bit up and to the right of center. I don't understand why I did that. Probably a coordinate error on my part when I wrote the script file to take the image. The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on October 14, 1787 and is in the second Herschel 400 object list. This is what put it on my to-do list at a rather low urgency rating. These get taken when waiting for something better to get into position.

NGC 7245 is a rather blue cluster because its stars are young. WEBDA puts its age at about 175 million years. Reddening from our galaxy's dust is about 0.47 magnitude though it is still quite blue thanks to the young age of its stars. Its distance is about 7,000 light-years. I measure it at about 5 minutes in size though this is very approximate. That would make it only 10 light-years across.

What I didn't know at the time was the existence of a second open cluster in the frame. It is found up and to the left of NGC 7245 and is easier to distinguish in my image due to all the faint stars. This cluster is King 9. WEBDA puts its age at over 3 billion years or 18 times that of NGC 7245. That explains why it has no blue stars. They've long since died. Its distance is listed at 26,000 light-years making it nearly 4 times further away. I measure its long axis at about 1.5' which makes it about 11 light-years across. But other sources put its size at 3 minutes making it 22 light-years across. About the same as NGC 7245. Even though it is much more distant and seen along nearly the same line of site WEBDA puts its reddening at only 0.37 magnitudes, a bit less than NGC 7245 which I find rather odd. It is Trumpler class I1m so is detached from the background and highly concentrated with stars of more even brightness and between 50 and 100 stars making it a richer cluster as well. Sometimes when imaging a dud something better shows up.

14" LX200R @ f/10, RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7245

NGC7246

NGC 7246 also known as IC 5198 is a spiral galaxy in Aquarius about 170 million light-years distant (130 million by a single Tully-Fisher measurement. I suspect the redshift distance is closer to the right value as you usually need several Tully-Fisher measurements to home in on a distance using that method. It was discovered by William Herschel on September 6, 1793. It isn't in either of the H400 programs.

There's nothing much interesting about this galaxy. But it wasn't my real target. I was more interested in the two highly distorted galaxies on either side of it. Since NGC 7246 appears pretty normal I wondered if these other two were related? If so could their distortion be due to a near collision between them? Unfortunately neither NED nor SIMBAD had anything on these. NED didn't even have the LEDA galaxy in its various databases that I could find. The APMUKS galaxy wasn't in SIMBAD that I could find. I came up empty trying to answer these questions.

This field is below my normal -15 degree declination cutoff and is very noisy being hurt by both seeing so low in the sky and by fog coming off the lake that cost a good magnitude or more and cast a bright haze over the entire image. As the fog was constantly changing it created lots of gradients over the image. Removing them likely removed the fainter parts of both galaxies. So this is another for the reshoot list but unless I can find something on these two distorted galaxies, I doubt that will happen.

I'd wanted more time for this one but the 11 frames I did get was all I could before it went into my Meridian tree. Since then the weather hasn't allowed another try and it is now lost to that tree for this year. So I went with what I had. With only 1 extra frame I decided to make it a blue filter image as blue is severely hurt by the fog rising over the lake. I can't see it helped to any significant extent.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=2x10' B=3x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7246

NGC7250

NGC 7250 is considered to be a merging pair of galaxies. Seems worthy of Arp's list but wasn't included. It is in the constellation of Lacerta about 40 to 45 million light-years distant. It is somewhat obscured by our galaxy's dust. Even with 12 subs, the faint outer regions were just that, faint. It must be a lovely sight without the dust. It is classed as S-irr by the NGC project and Sdm? at NED. It is a starburst galaxy which isn't surprising for a recent galaxy merger. Still, it appears rather small in angular size. So small I imaged it at 0.5" per pixel and it still isn't very big. One note indicates the brightest star-like object to the northwest (upper right) of the core about 24 seconds of arc from the center is a "companion". Do they mean the remains of the merging galaxy? For such an interesting galaxy I found very little on it. Probably because it is nearly impossible to separate the signature of features of its spectrum, radio and visual, from those of the Milky Way itself. This is often the case with galaxies seen this close to the galactic plane. I suppose the galaxy would be much bluer if not for the galactic extinction as well. It was discovered by William Herschel on November 8, 1790. It isn't in either H400 program.

Few other galaxies are in my image, none with redshift data. The brightest is 2MASX J22182750+4035226 to the east-northeast of NGC 7250. NED lists only one other galaxy in the entire field, though I see a couple dozen. The one it lists is in the upper right corner of the image. It is rather red in color and northeast of the first bright star down from that corner. Several others are in the area, it is the brightest. It is 2MASX J22173483+4038271 if you just had to know.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=12x10'x1 RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for NGC7250